New City Market under construction

City Market hopes to have its newest store open in time for Christmas.

“We are finally moving dirt,” City Market President Phyllis Norris said of the project in the growing area off 24 Road near Patterson Road.

The cold weather this winter set back construction about a month, Norris said, making it more difficult to get the store open in time for Christmas shopping.

“Our plan is to open no later than January, and the goal is December,” Norris said.

The 58,000-square-foot store will be built on 7.4 acres north of Boston’s The Gourmet Pizza and west of Kohl’s and will cost $12 million to $15 million.

The new store will be roughly the same size as the downtown Grand Junction City Market and offer many of the amenities that the grocery chain started with its new store in Montrose. The new store will include a cheese center with a trained staff, a larger produce department, which “is probably one of our strongest points,” and a seafood department intended to appeal to a more health-conscious consumer, Norris said.

“We’ll have a lot of things that we have just not been able to bring into our other stores,” Norris said. The store will employ 120 to 150 people, she said.

A gasoline station on the southeast corner of the parcel near Boston’s will be part of the new store, Norris said.

Shoppers will be able to enter the store’s parking lot off Market Street or 24 Road. Leaving the store onto 24 Road, though, will allow only a right-hand turn, she said.

One thing the new store won’t change is the oldest of the Grand Junction-area City Markets. The small grocery store at First Street and Orchard Avenue still has a devoted clientele and will remain in operation, Norris said.